Tony Rossini and his wife, Diane, in December 2009 in the Rossini's backyard rink in Roseville. (Submitted by Ken Ljung.)

When Ken Ljung sees his neighbors' backyard rink lit up or hears a stick slap a puck, he feels rewarded for a job well done.

"It means the kids are having fun," he said.

For the past four winters, Ljung has built and helped maintain a rink at the Rossini house three doors down from his Roseville home. He does it because his neighbor and former golf buddy, Tony Rossini, no longer can.

In 2008, at 52, Rossini was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. The disease forced him into an assisted-living home.

"The family got a raw deal," Ljung said on a recent afternoon while watching Rossini's sons, Nick, 18, and Thomas, 14, play shinny hockey with friends at their Eldridge Avenue home.

Diane Rossini holds her dog Rosie as neighbor Ken Ljung looks on. Ljung has built a backyard hockey rink at the Rossini house for four years since Tony Rossini was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers, photographed on January 28, 2013. ( Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Ljung recalled when Tony Rossini waved him over to his back yard in the fall of 2009 and showed him the 2-by-4s he had laid out in the grass. He said he wanted to build a rink so that his sons and their friends could have some fun -- a distraction from the disease slowly affecting their lives.

Ljung got to work. He did some online research on backyard rinks, penciled a design on paper and made a few trips to the lumber salvage yard and hardware store.

Ljung and Rossini built the 56-by-28-foot rink together.

"Tony helped out Ken, who was running around like the Energizer bunny," said Diane Rossini, Tony's wife.

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"We flooded and shoveled ... and Tony loved it. He was out there playing with the boys. Thomas liked to shoot pucks to Tony, who played goalie a lot of the time."

Sports are a big part of life in the Rossini family, which has deep roots in St. Paul. Tony went to Cretin High School, where he played football and hockey. His father, Reno, was a principal and football coach at Murray High School.

Nick and Thomas grew up with Tony coaching their youth baseball and hockey teams.

About five years ago, Diane noticed that Tony was doing things out of the ordinary. An attorney blessed with a sharp memory, he started to become forgetful.

"He forgot the names of the lakes his family has gone to for like 40 years, and he couldn't name a tomato," she said. "And he would go to the store and bring lemons home instead of limes."

Diane, a nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, initially brushed it off. After all, she said, Tony still was working at his law firm and "nobody ever complained that his job was slipping."

But Tony's condition grew worse. One day, he drove Thomas to his championship baseball game -- and they barely made it.

"They went to the wrong park," Diane said. "That was kind of the icing on the cake.

Thomas Rossini, 14, takes a shot on goalie Matt Steiner, 14, at the backyard hockey rink built at the Roseville home of Tony and Diane Rossini by their neighbor Ken Ljung, who has helped out ever since Tony Rossini was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers, photographed on January 28, 2013. ( Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

They got there for the last inning. I had the whole team running to all the ball fields looking for them."

The diagnosis has been rough on the boys, she said. It's hard for them to visit their dad, who cannot speak.

"He was their idol, their coach and their goofy, silly guy," she said.

It's been tough, too, for Diane, who met Tony in 1987 on a blind date at the Venetian Inn in Little Canada. She sees him three times a week, in between her job at Abbott Northwestern and shuttling Thomas to his bantam hockey games.

"Tony is nonverbal, so I sit and talk to him and walk around with him," she said. "I think he remembers me when I get really close to him and start talking to him. His staff thinks he does, too."

Ljung said if the rink gives them respite from the family's situation, it's all worth it.

"He just did it because he's a good guy," said Nick, a senior at Roseville High School. "It means a lot because my brother, Thomas, is pretty good at hockey. So I feel like it's really helped him improve. And that's cool to see him happy."

Ljung's wife, Shari, said she's proud of him.

"He stepped in when he could do something," she said. "When you can step in and do something to help somebody, and you feel it in your heart, it's just great."